Sunday, June 12, 2011

FWQAL fever

For those who don't speak e-quiltese, the translation of my post title is "Farmer's Wife Quilt-along Fever."  And it's contagious!

The blocks are so wee and cute and quick...they almost sew themselves!

So in the tiny corners of my day I made "Calico Puzzle":


"Batwing":


"Big Dipper":


I took a stab at "Basket" -- but since I am flying blind (my book has not yet arrived!), I didn't quite know what to do about appliqueing the basket handle.  (That poor little bias strip is just sitting on the sidelines, waiting for me to figure things out.)  I'm now thinking that I probably should have done that step before assembling the block, but for the time being I'm just going to put this aside -- at least until I have some guidance from The Book (or from my helpful friends in cyberspace!).


Finally, I just made my absolute favourite FWQAL block to date, simply called "Box" -- and I had to photograph it before the light disappeared altogether (so it's not even trimmed yet):


This block combines two aesthetics I love, but which I didn't expect to mesh well: the wildness of Kaffe Fassett prints and simplicity of vinatge feedsacks (the yellow and white print is a reproduction feedsack by Glenna Hailey for Maywood).  I know this combo won't be to everyone's taste, but I like it -- and I'm going to make it my goal in this sampler to (finally) use up the 1/2 yard of this Kaffe Fassett print.

I think I like where this is going!

8 comments:

Shocking Hocking said...

Your blocks look fabulous - but the book doesn't provide too much guidance - I simply drew a half circle above the basket then stitched the handle with an invisible applique stitch using the line as a guide - it took me 3 goes though!
cheers

verykerryberry said...

Wow, I am impressed, you did these without the book! I do love the Kaffe and the feedsack too!

Prof. S (the enchanted bobbin) said...

Katie: thanks so much for the info. I'm going to give the appliqued handle a try!

Thanks for the kind words, Kerry. I was lucky enough to get ahold of some of templates, and have just used the flickr pool to get a sense of the block designs.

Karen - Quilts...etc. said...

I too joined the yahoo group recently and started my Farmer's Wife this past week. I'm not positive about my color choices and might start over again - I wanted more of a white/scrappy looking. I'm giving it another look at today and see what I feel like doing with it. I like your blocks.
Karen
http://karensquilting.com/blog/

Prof. S (the enchanted bobbin) said...

Thanks, Karen. I look forward to checking out your blog! Have fun with the QAL.

Kristen said...

Wow - you're working on these without the book? Impressive! This is the project that got me finally beginning a quilting blog. I'm looking forward to my book arriving soon ... but won't be starting before that!

LizA. said...

I'll email you how I did my handle....

Prof. S (the enchanted bobbin) said...

Thanks for all the great comments -- and Liz: thank you so much for the tips on making the basket handle!!